A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

Of all the classic horror movies that spawned series during the late seventies and early eighties I think A Nightmare of Elm Street is my least favorite of all. I’m not sure why this is, but for some reason I’ve never really had cravings to watch this flick the way I do things like Halloween, Friday the 13th, A Texas Chainsaw Massacre (only if I’m in the right mindset), Child’s Play, or Phantasm. Even more bizarre, I love Wes Craven, and with the exception of two or three movies he made, frequently watch his films over and over again, my favorite being The People Under the Stairs, followed by Scream and The Serpent and the Rainbow. With everyone else in the horror fan world, however, A Nightmare on Elm Street is up at the top, and usually surpasses the Wes Craven films I love. Adding insult to injury -- in the eyes of those who really love A Nightmare on Elm Street -- my favorite of the series is Wes Craven’s New Nightmare. For this many fans will never forgive me, yet I can’t apologize for it. We can’t pick what we like and don’t like. I do admit though that I fully understand how strange it is to like a movie so far along in the series better than the first entry. Rest be assured this is the only series where this has happened. With everything else I usually can’t stand the last one or two movies that complete a series and always want to go back and watch the first entry. Of course none of this should be interpreted as me not liking A Nightmare on Elm Street, I just don’t like it as much as the other movies I listed.

Though I’m sure everyone who is reading this already knows the story being told in A Nightmare on Elm Street, for those that don’t, it is the tale of a high school girl named Nancy and three of her friends, all of whom live on Elm Street. One night they each begin to suffer nightmares that feature a boiler room where a scarred up man in red and green sweater and battered fedora tries to kill them with a razor tipped glove he wears over his right hand. Unlike most dreams the injuries suffered within these nightmares carry over into reality, something that a girl named Tina learns during the first night when she discovers her nightgown clawed up upon waking. Needless to say being killed in one of these dreams is not good, for that too would carry over into the real world. Sadly this happens. Watching as their group is whittled away one by one, Nancy and her boyfriend Glen try to uncover the truth behind the nightmares while fighting to stay awake night after night. Exhausted, they eventually learn that the man in the nightmares is a former child molester named Freddy Krueger who was burned to death by their parents many years earlier. Wanting revenge he preys upon the children of Elm Street as they sleep; an act that no one can resist indefinitely. The question is will Nancy and Glen be able acquire enough dream skills to take on this villain once their bodies can no longer stay awake, or will they too wind up a bloody mess within tangled bed sheets for their parents to discover come morning. It’s only a matter of time before the answer is known as Freddy Krueger waits for them in their subconscious minds, his razor sharp claw ready to slice through their flesh.

As stated above, A Nightmare on Elm Street is not one of my top favorites, yet it is still an enjoyable watch from time to time, especially when I grow tired of constantly viewing those films I always crave. Last night was a perfect example of this as I popped in this DVD. As always I got sucked into the story right away and completely focused my mind on trying to understand the complicated balance between dream and reality, and how Nancy was able to carry the fight from the dream world to the real world and whether or not it was the real world or just another dream. Kind of throws the mind for a spin when you try to break it all down. I also can never quite grasp how things unfold outside of the dream around the body of the sleeping person who is going to be killed, the sudden threading of the bed sheet around one victim’s neck so he hangs being a perfect example of this. Instead of finding his lifeless body hanging, shouldn’t they just have found him laying in bed with marks around his neck from being hanged in the dream? Questions like that aside, A Nightmare on Elm Street is a wonderful movie that holds a high spot on the shelf of many horror fans and therefore is one I always highly recommend even if it doesn’t completely work for me. I know talent when I see it. Also, unlike many movies coming out these days, this one focused on the characters rather than the horror, which in turn made the horror more horrifying and thus the overall experience more enjoyable. It is something I wish more filmmakers would recognize and attempt with their modern horror films. Hopefully I’m not alone in this.